“There is a wound rotting underneath the bandage that we need to talk about,” says Babalwa Baartman, co-writer and co-producer of, the horror satire about the transplantation of inimba from where it is needed to where it is paid for.
The real horror story, according to director, co-producer and co-writer Jenna Cato Bass, is the national malaise typified by “the maid-madam dynamic”. She implicates herself in the unequal race relations that enable this toxic symbiosis. “[It] has certainly affected my life and the lives of all my contemporaries, across race and class. The domestic worker is the symbol of everything that remains wrong with the end of apartheid.
In a commentary on the havoc wreaked upon the black family unit by the migrant labour system, and its concomitant township-suburb commute, Tsidi is combative and dysfunctional in her relationships. She refers to her birth-mother Mavis as “Sisi” and Ma Radebe — her grandmother — as “Mama”, because black South Africans were forced to protect the growing child with the white lie that the absent parent was a sibling, while a grandparent fulfilled the guardian’s role.
“Stuart is a character that is easy to misunderstand,” warns Bass, so it may be worth considering that he feels guilt not only about his own, but his mother’s station in life. His version of penance may not go down easily with every viewer, but it is important to remember that contrition is there. “UnguGcinumzi,” emphasises Baartman, drawing attention to the meaning of his name, which in isiXhosa is “custodian or keeper of the home”.
What Tsidi does not understand is that Mavis welcomes the burden of looking after Diane into their old age, because the madam’s potential descent into a nursing home or grave would mean homelessness for the domestic worker. How, after 30 years of labour, is Mavis not in a position to afford her own home? Tsidi decries the fact that Diane never gives her mother a raise, which induces further enmity from the house.